Hand drawn or painted FDC (first day covers) have been done since the 1940s. Over the past few years I have begun combining my collection of comic character hand drawn sketches with FDCs. This blog is being maintained for the purpose of sharing my collection...

Friday, December 25, 2015

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer first appeared in 1939 in a booklet written by Robert L. May and published by Montgomery Ward...

Rudolph would gain immortality through the song written by Johnny Marks. Recorded by many artists through the years, the first commercially successful rendition was in 1949 by Gene Autry. Other artists include Bong Crosby, Spike Jones, Dean Martin, The Temptation, Burl Ives, The Jackson 5, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the list goes on...

Rudolph would gain further popularity in 1964 when Rankin/Bass Productions aired their stop-motion animated special on CBS television, which has never left the air-waves. The story follows a dejected Rudolph and Hermey the would be dentist elf who go on travels to help the misfit toys and their adventure with Yukon Cornelius and the dangerous abominable snowman "The Bumble"...

2014 marked the 75th anniversary of Rudolph and the 75th anniversary of the television special. A series of US postage stamps was released on November 6, featuring Rudolph and his friends. My favorite characters are Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble. I asked Jacob Chabot to draw the Bumble on the 2014 Rudolph Bumble first day cover...

Jacob Chabot is a cartoonist illustrator whose work has appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine, Savage Dragon, Marvel Comics and his own The Mighty Skullboy Army, from Dark Horse Comics. Skullboy was nominated for an Eisner Award in 20078 for Best Book for Teens...

Friday, December 18, 2015

Eryk Donovan is a comic book creator and illustrator. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, his work has been featured in Boom! Studios series Memetic, Thrillbent's series The House in the Wall and Super Mario Bros. 2 the Movie Sequel webcomic...

From Eryk's blog: "I make my drawings with the intention of the ink being the final work, not the pencils. If no-one ever sees my pencils I'm fine with that was long as they think my inks are sexy."

Since I didn't have any first day covers that related to the Boom Studios Memetic, I asked what his preference was, to which he quickly responded science fiction. When he noticed the Star Wars FDC that became his choice...

Donovan's lastest book with James Tynion IV (signed by both) from Boom! Studios - Cognetics

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Joe Eisma is the artist co-creator of the Eisner nominated and New York Times best selling series from Image Comics - Morning Glories. The story focuses on a group of students at the Morning Glories Academy, which hides sinister and deadly secrets. The series is written by Nick Spencer...

Eisma has also worked on Hoax Hunters, Existence 3.0 and Dynamo 5 from Image comics, Higher Earth from Boom! Studios and Cobra from IDW Publishing...

After a brief discussion Eisma chose to do Star Wars related sketch. If i had a Higher Learning or other educational related first day cover, I would have went with a character from Morning Glories.

His Darth Sidious captures the evil expression nicely...

Outside of artist alley Jelly Belly had a booth with 2 paintings made from jelly beans - Darth Vader and Yoda, while artist Kristen Cummings was working an a Batman. I don't know how she avoids eating the jelly beans while working. Cummings uses an acrylic drawing to serve as a guide to the final product. Cummings began working for Jelly Belly producing her first works in 2010..

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Royal Mail also had different postmarks for cancellations for different types of covers being produced. The Alliance Starbird cancel from Elstree, Borehamwood was used as the traditional first day postmark,

the Imperial cancel from Tallents House, Edinbrugh was used on the Prestige stamp book first day cover,

Millenium Falcon postmark used on the Vehicles medallion (PNC) cover

AT-AT walker used on the Battles medallion (PNC) cover

2013 - Dutch artist Stefan van Zoggel produced fantasy art showing stamps that might have been used in the Star Wars universe. The stamps were featured on the site Damn Cool Pictures.

van Zoggel used some very old stamp designs to bring these stamps to life. Although in the futuristic setting of Star Wars, there had to be a past on all of these planets where they had a more archaic form of sending messages.

Monday, December 14, 2015

2015 - my tribute to Wally Wood. I had just finished reading the Fantagraphics book Spawn of Mars and other Stories by Wally Wood, when I decided to attempt the above sketch, which was based on Wood's self-portrait from the story Rescued!..

Although I did not specifically follow Wood's work, I have always been a fan of science fiction and fantasy in any form. Reading these stories was a special treat for me in that I had a chance to step back in time and see what people were reading in the 1950's. The designs of the space suits, the Twilight Zone feel of each story.

Wood also provided work for MAD magazine, Marvel's Daredevil (he created the red suit!) and long time science fiction an fantasy stories for EC Comics.

Since I have always been a fan of science fiction, especially space travel..I endlessly watch any space movie good or bad. I can remember watching the John Glenn launch. I was in grade school. All of the students were brought into the auditorium, and a black and white TV was rolled onto the stage, so we could all watch history unfold. I dreamed of being an astronaut, and I still do...

While researching some retro rocket designs, I came across a ship that look similar to the one I drew. My thought was to have droplets of flame instead of a giant plume. Since it was October I was probably eating candy corn at the time, and like the idea...

When the 1977 Motion Pictures stamp was release I had written to several production companies to ask for a corner card envelope I could use to create a first day cover. I received responses from MGM, Disney, and Paramount. Besides their routine envelopes, Paramount sent this Star Trek the Motion Picture envelope, which thrilled me. The Star Trek movie would be released in 1979...

The official cachet from the Motion Picture Association of America - Committee for the Celebration of the Talkies. The reverse of the envelope contains the following text: The cachet depicts six landmarks films in the history of talking pictures: The Jazz Singer, first feature film with synchronized dialogue; Fantasia, optical stereo sound; The Robe, magnetic stereo sound; Oklahoma, six-track 70mm sound; earthquake, low frequency sound; and Star Wars, stereo sound with noise reduction, using the present state-of-the-art in sound technology

Amazing since Star Wars was only released in May of 1977. In several days the latest installment of the Star Wars saga continues with the Force Awakens...

Friday, December 11, 2015

Justin Leiter has almost two decades of experience in illustration and graphic design, starting in the apparel industry working with top licenses such as Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Curious George, Power Rangers, Speed Racer, Monster Jam, Spider-Man and others..

Leiter has also created designs for top retailers including Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penney, Kohls and Family Dollar...

2015.04.29 Red and Rover by Brian Basset - because I still love comic strips and this is one of the best...

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Jeff Parker is a writer and artist, having worked on the animated The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot.. In comics he has penciled Solitaire, Wonder Woman, Freex, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Batgirl, Archie and others...

About Me

I have been a collector as far back as I can remember. Stamps, covers, autographs, baseball cards, comic books, coins, political buttons, sports memorabilia, space stamps and covers, and the list goes on.
This blog was set up to be able to share a small part of my collection with anyone who shares the interest.